Building Parts Into A Whole

Since my last post I have continued to work on the Halloween panels (see previous post). I sort of got stuck for a few days after I made those first blocks out of the fussy cut images. Eventually it occurred to me to look for prints to frame up the biggest panel into a more workable size.

That wide black border has little stars all over it. That gave me the idea to make star blocks to be cornerstones in a border to surround the panel. Plus they will echo the 12" star blocks I made out of a couple of the smaller panels.

Of course I fussy cut more Halloween imagery to be the centers of the stars! The next problem was what to use to fill in between the stars. Since I'd already used straight strips to turn images into blocks I decided to use more straight strips in Rail Fence blocks around this big panel. Repetition creates unity you know. ;- )

I say "big" but it was only about 13 x 22 inches when I liberated it from the original yardage. With the wide black border and Rail Fence blocks surrounding it I now had a panel about 30 x 42 inches. Honestly, I need to get you some detail shots! There are some cute prints in those Rail Fence logs! Hopefully when you double click on the photographs they will get big enough for you to see more details.

There was still an 8 x 6" panel unframed and unused at this point. It had continued to float above this Trick or Treat panel on the design wall so I looked for ways to incorporate it into what would become the middle section of the finished quilt.

I had to rummage around in my stash to find anything that would be in the same color palette and style of the images from the yardage I began with. These are nice clear hues and a lot of what I have has a gray tone to it. I did find some other small panels however. I was able to cut them down to be the centers of yet more Variable Stars and they went on either side of the 8 x 6" panel, also framed up with strips.

At this point this section of the quilt top measures about 30 x 53.5 inches. Good enough. Now to figure out how to build up the rest of the blocks and panels to make up the rest of the quilt top...!